"The road to Neah Bay is serpentine, a thin twist of wet double-yellow-lined gray. It flirts for twenty miles with the edge of cliffs that seem to stand at the mercy of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and its wide swath of soon-to-be Pacific Ocean. Mapmakers mark it as scenic when it would be …
Dreams
I can't imagine being an insomniac; sleep has never been a problem for me. Almost every night like clockwork Bob wakes up around 2:30 or 3 and turns on the bedside lamp and starts reading a book and will read for at least a couple of hours. Most nights, I'll wake up, glance at him …
Weathering the Storm
Moving forward. Going backwards, uphill, and slowly descending. Last hunt of 2020 for us was yesterday, I followed Bob around the chukar hills just like the old days. Camera in hand. No shotgun. Winter is my favorite time to be out there. It's quiet. Following tracks of ghosts of deer, elk, and birds. Detective work. …
The Beautiful Familiar
"Come on dogs, let's go hunting." Not just one dog but two. Not much more work having two. They get fed at the same time, go to bed at the same time, and adapt to each other's miscellaneous routines at home, like, for example, keying off of each other when it comes to hearing something …
High Desert
Ring, Ring. "Hello, can I help you?" "Do you guys have gas?" Bob asked. I could hear the woman on the other end laughing. "Of course we do, we're a gas station," she answered. "We're only open from 8am-5pm." "Just checking, we'd hate to drive all that way and find out you didn't," he added. …
Love and Grief
"Her name is Rosie", the old man that was camped near us with Florida license plates told me as his dog walked over to me. Rosie, was an overweight black lab with gray on her face and eyes clouded over with glaucoma. "Come on Rosie, don't bother her," he yelled in her direction. I yelled …
Home Movies
After the light came We got an early start and headed up the mountain in the dark wearing headlamps for the first part of the climb. After about an hour of zigzagging up the mountain the sun started to rise in the distance. Some parts of the climb were super steep and I ended up …
Decade
Celebrating and reminiscing about great days on the chukar hills from past seasons. These beautiful moments, funny ones, exhausting ones, and even frustrating ones always remind us of the beauty of the sport and what the culture of chukar hunting means to all of us. The following is a collection of some photos we've never …
Love and Danger
On the steep ascent the winds were blowing hard and the dogs were having a hard time pinpointing the birds and singles were busting wild from the grasses and the minute you blinked one would take off like a missile. Halfway up the ridge, I stopped on top of a rocky outcropping to wait for …
Reflection
My problem is that anything that I want to be good at, I take it seriously and have the tendency to get obsessed with it. Years ago, I raced bicycles at an elite level and for 12 months a year my life revolved around bicycles and the bicycle racing scene. It was eat, sleep, train, …